Strange, my Father had this problem. I'm not a tech but do what I can to support him. I uninstalled an upgrade to IE8, and everything worked fine.

I reinstalled the upgrade to IE8, and everything worked - except in IE the search engine default option could not be changed, and prompts every time you open the browser.

I suggest that he just use Firefox, but he says IE just opens sometimes; so whatever. His default browser is set to Firefox, i think he clicks on the IE icon sometimes.

My WI-FI is hooked up and technically I am connected but whenever I try to use Firefox to connect to a help page or any web browser it will display "problem loading page. The same occurs with internet explorer so I don't know how I would be able to download anything. To be honest I never use Internet explorer so my version is way outdated, so I don't think that would be the problem, either way neither IE or Firefox will display internet info.

I don't know if you are still having the issue but if you are have you contacted your ISP? It sounds to me like it's more of a connectivity issue than a browser problem. I've dealt with similar things several times and in both cases it was something with the modem or an ISP setting. I'm also wondering if it could be a Wi-Fi issue. Can you log in to your router? (It varies by brand but you would go to a site such as http://192.168.10.1. That is for Trendnet. The information for yours should be in the documentation that came with it.) You should be able to get the router log in page to come up even if you can't connect to any websites. (Provided the network is set up correctly.) I also would double check your connection settings (if you're connecting over Wi-Fi) or your ethernet connection. (If you're connected directly to the modem and router.) Hopefully one of these suggestions will be helpful.